Dragonscales
by Cantare
Summary: Drabbles on various characters and scenarios.
1. Apologetic

It came out more as a cough than a laugh, with blood clotting in the man's throat.

He was giving thanks. Why?

It should be an apology instead.

His grip tightened as he smiled. The man on the ground smiled back through smashed teeth and bleeding gums.

After such a long time, the fool still didn't know that his prince's smiles were always devoid of mercy.

With a swing of his arm and a wave of ki, he put an end to a twenty year farce.

A prince with no kingdom has no loyalties.

A/N: When I looked up a script for this scene online, I found that in the Japanese version he says "I'm sorry," but in the English version he says "Thank you." Interesting contrast.


	2. Breaking In

He stood slowly, cool amber eyes indifferent. Removing his gloves delicately, he ignited them with a small flare of ki, wrinkling his nose at the smell of burnt blood. It annoyed him that there was still blood on his armor. The boy had put up a stronger fight than most his age.

He had great distaste for the task he had been assigned as of late. Breaking in the new recruits, mere babes. Yet it was the latest idea his master had concocted to amuse himself…and to instill deep shame and obedience in the youths who entered his service. Especially this one.

He left the medics to clean up the blood and filth, hearing the boy's weak sputters of rage as he sauntered out of the cell. This was the first time the boy would be force-healed in a regen tank. But he knew nothing could force this shameful memory from the boy's mind, ever. That the last image in his brain before he lost consciousness would be a delicate, torturously effeminate visage framed by gentle waves of emerald hair. And the sound of soft, silken lips whispering mockery in his ear.


	3. Tomorrow

Blistered fingers clawed for handholds on the crimson-splattered wall. His eyes were half-shut against the sweat and blood trickling down his forehead, head wounds stinging at his every attempt to merely think about the goal.

Climb the wall. Retrieve the key. Unlock the collar.

Unlock the damn ki-sapping collar around his neck—his one imperative, the raging desire sunken into his dreams for each day of the past month.

Another directed beam of ki sliced into his side before he could dodge, and he lost the precious handholds he had gained, slipping further down the hundred-foot wall, the key hanging at the top of it taunting him as it grew smaller in his hazy vision.

The hated voice from the viewing window tittered in amusement. Without looking he knew those dark red lips were smiling at the scene of torture and humiliation masquerading as "endurance training."

The timer ticked to zero and announced his defeat.

"Not fast enough, I'm afraid, dear Prince. Perhaps try again tomorrow?"

_Tomorrow_.

He gritted his teeth and cursed the disgusting creature his father had given him over to.

_Tomorrow_. There was no choice but tomorrow.


	4. What Goes on in Class Stays in Class

"Three point one four one five nine two six five-"

On reflex he ducked the small round projectile that had been fired at his head from around 3 o'clock.

"-three five eight nine-" he continued seamlessly.

"Ugh!"

He stopped and turned toward nine o'clock, where two angry blue eyes were suddenly burning holes into his skin--no, they were looking past him. A slimy-looking ball of tightly crumpled paper was stuck in one black pigtail.

On reflex he ducked again as she vaulted over his head and delivered a well-aimed punch to the initial aggressor's face. Her technique was a little off, though.

"...seven nine three-" he said with a bit more hesitation.

"Thank you Gohan, that's enough, I only asked for an approximation of pi," the teacher sighed, massaging his sinuses tiredly. "Miss Videl, please sit down. Sharpner, get your ass to the nurse's office. Then go see the principal."


	5. Weariness

There is a certain weariness that comes with knowing defeat is imminent.

Strange, that it is weariness that settles into my bones instead of fear, desperation, or hope for a miracle.

Was this how he felt the moment he knew, without a whisper of a doubt, that he would lose? During that torturous hour, was it ki blasts and bone-shattering blows that wore him down, or the mere knowledge that it was the end?

They told me it was a shot through the heart that finally killed him. But I think he died long before he stopped breathing.

Today, I await defeat, knowing what will happen when I tell him of the secret growing inside me, testifying to his weakness with every feeble heartbeat. His cold reply will open the mortal wound.

I wonder if he will recognize the weariness in my eyes, and remember his own end, before he deals that blow.


	6. To Live

"My people…my world…my empire…my freedom..." The words came out harshly between gasps for air. Apparently the beating had punctured the boy's lungs.

"…everything that once was mine has been taken from me. How…how can I live on…when there is nothing left?" A bloody cough wracked his small body.

"…when everything that should be mine…belongs to another…"

His last words were a barely decipherable growl, full of murderous hate that was as useless as he was in his current state. He could not stand—they had broken his legs. Neither could he lie down, as his entire back was scored by whip marks. He could only sit half-curled against the wall like a tortured prisoner awaiting release. Or like a freshly purchased slave waiting to be clothed.

_Everything you have, everything you touch is mine, my foolish prince. Even the clothes on your back. The ruby lips smiled. Now let us ensure you never forget._

The lesson could never be forgotten by those who heard it. Time could only dull its serrated edge. Zarbon considered the boy for another moment and spoke.

"Do you think you are the only one who has lost everything?" he said without emotion. "The only prince who has lost his kingdom? The only living being who is enslaved?"

The pain-filled glare on the boy's face turned to confusion at the sight of the two small glittering objects in Zarbon's palm.

"Relics of a throne I will never ascend and a people I will never see as long as I am alive." He withdrew his hand and calmly put on the earrings once again. "Remember this, young prince. We who have lost everything are the only ones who are free to choose what to live for."

He turned to leave the cell. It was silent except for the shallow breaths of tired lungs.

"But there is a simpler answer to your question," he stated, pausing at the door. "You just keep living."


	7. Scattered

"You have lost, good king."

The broken, bleeding man tried to stand, only to be dealt a vicious blow by the guard restraining his arms. He spat blood, perhaps intending to mar the pearl white skin of the lizard tyrant standing before him.

"Now, now. What would your people think of their 'lord of beauty' if they saw him reduced to such petty acts of vengeance?" Frieza admonished him as one would a little child.

"We are not defeated," he rasped, his voice hoarse with thirst. "We will never bow to you."

"Your people may not all be dead," Frieza said thoughtfully. "But they are defeated nonetheless. A scattered people is a defeated people. They have no home, no army, no safe haven, and soon they will have no leader."

"My son lives."

The tyrant sighed at the annoying persistence of the doomed king. It seemed all dying rulers subjected him to their fits of denial.

"Indeed he lives. As a servant in my court until he dies," he added with a cruel smile. "And with his beauty, exceptional even among your race, I believe he will make an exquisite consort as well."

He dealt the king a crushing blow hardly a split-second after the man tried to lunge forward and attack. He put a hand to his lips in mock surprise as he saw that he had snapped the king's neck. In death the man's face was still twisted in hate, his formerly beautiful features heavily battered and bruised.

Then he made a move none of his guards had ever seen. He knelt before the corpse. With a bemused look he removed the amber earrings and necklace from the man's ears and throat, examining them in his hand curiously.

"I'll tell your son that these are from daddy," he whispered in the corpse's ear.


	8. Listening

The king knelt down to look into his son's eyes, searching, piercing. The boy stiffened, returning his father's stare blankly, unsure of the meaning of this gesture. Kings were never supposed to kneel to others, not even their heir, unless it was to die and pass on the throne.

One gloved finger tapped the transparent screen over his left eye. "Do not lose this, boy. Keep it with you at all times, and do not let anyone take it from you. Hide it if you must."

"Why?" he said, his young voice curt and haughty. "It's a nuisance."

"Listen to me," the king commanded, a strong hand gripping his shoulder. His hard gaze was edged with urgency. "Listen."

* * *

He dealt the guard a killing blow to the throat, silencing the scream that would have broadcast their presence to the entire ship. Another lightning strike, and the scouter over the man's face shattered.

He and his men gathered in one dark corridor to get their bearings. He calmly pressed a button on his own scouter, typing in a code only he knew.

"Son. Are you listening?"

His loyal soldiers behind him held their breaths. The plan was to cause enough of a disturbance so the boy could escape, even if he were the only one who would make it out alive.

A dry, sibilant chuckle sounded from the other end. The king froze.

"Tsk, tsk, my dear Vegeta. Sneaking onto my ship like that. I suppose you miss your little boy."

"Frieza..." The growl came from deep within his gut, the seat of his hatred for the tyrant and the impending doom hanging over them all.

The lizard's voice was suddenly ice cold. "Come and get him...if you can."

He broke off the link and smashed his scouter in one fist.

"It's time," he said simply to the soldiers behind him.


	9. Cooperate

Nappa was in a panic.

He was not as sharply intelligent as his prince or as clever as Raditz, he knew. He never contradicted his superiors when they put him down with insults about his intellectual capacity. It was easy for him to accept that he was simply not built to be anything but a warrior of siege tank classification. Slow but strong, most of the time unstoppable once he gained momentum and rage. He was also loyal.

He was in a panic now because if he did not break his loyalty, he, Raditz, and Prince Vegeta would all die.

"Cooperate" had been the only order Dodoria had given before sending them on this ridiculous training mission. The underlying goal was not to make them stronger but to try to humiliate them in front of the rest of the army, as usual.

Cooperation, they learned painfully, meant staying within a ten foot radius of one another, or else the braces on their necks and limbs would shock them with electric currents powerful enough to kill them if sustained over five seconds.

It did not help that they knew nothing of the planet's terrain or the hostile creatures that lived in burrows, springing up around them to shoot ki blasts and then ducking down out of reach. The first fifteen minutes had worn the prince's limited patience to nothing, and thereafter their lives had begun wearing down with each shock that came from the angry young man's attempts at moving beyond the set radius.

The prince was actually the one closest to death because his body mass was by far the lowest, though he hated to be reminded of the fact. Nappa was in a panic because if he died, they would all die. What use did Frieza have for two mediocre, ugly Saiyans without their prince? Even Nappa knew that the only reason Frieza kept them around was so Vegeta could keep his sanity; without subjects, he could not even pretend at being a prince anymore.

He made his decision and hoped he would not come to regret it later.

Before the prince could dart out of range in another futile attempt to hit an indigenous assailant, Nappa struck the back of his neck and caught him before he fell completely unconscious. The look on the prince's face was of unmatched shock and a promise of vengeance. He gulped and hoped he never would see that promise fulfilled.

In the last few seconds of his life years later, he realized the prince never left vows unfulfilled. It had just taken a while; the prince was more patient than he thought.


	10. Morning

6:30 AM.

My eyes open and I am fully awake before the clock ticks another second. It has been the same every day, at least for the past forty years.

But this is the first time in ten years that I sense someone lying beside me.

His breaths are calm and even now, but grief still shadows his deceptively youthful face. I wonder what his first thought will be when he awakens. Will it be the last line of the eulogy he must soon deliver, the taste of his own tears, or an onset of shame over where he ended up last night, the woman he sought out?

His father died yesterday, his third and final death. Of natural causes this time, so the Dragonballs are useless (I have always wondered why they can resurrect those who die of unnatural causes, yet cannot reverse the modifications on my body that have made me wholly unnatural and unable to die.).

He is truly alone now, not that he was ever close to any of his blood relations. I did not see him cry at his mother's funeral. He did shed tears at his sister's, perhaps out of guilt that her suicide might have been preventable, if he had just taken a bit of time out of his high-profile corporate life to have seen the signs. I had not expected him to cry over his father, as they had never had much of a relationship to begin with.

But perhaps it is because he is now alone that he grieves harder this time, because he cannot pretend anymore that he isn't alone.

Perhaps this is why he sought me out, because he knows I cannot change, cannot die or even age.

My reason to turn him away died ten years ago; his reason to stay away from me died yesterday.

* * *

A/N: Very strange idea that entered my brain out of nowhere; this is the first time I've written a non-canon pairing (in this anime at least). 


	11. Hero

Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

* * *

_A boy died yesterday because of you. What is your defense?_

_I…I'm sorry. _Goku was dreaming, but in the afterlife, dreams were pretty much the same as reality. Incorporeal and abstract, but truth nonetheless. There was no falsehood in the spirit realm.

He was genuinely sorry. He had never been anything other than genuine anyway. He wondered fleetingly if he could present that as a tidbit of defense. The thought was quickly swept away by the inflexible knowledge that the voice speaking to him saw through excuses as through polished glass. Somehow he had always known that there was a voice greater than Enma Daio's, issuing into the hearts of man from some place in eternity. When it had begun speaking to him in his dreams, he had realized this farcical 'heaven' where his soul dwelled now was in many ways merely another plane of mortality.

The voice seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

He took a breath (proverbially) and began. _I wish I could go back and change things. Be a better husband and father…I didn't know he'd sink so far down, enough to take his own life… _He broke off, intensely perturbed by the reality of it. _My son…_

A measureless moment passed. _But I thought I chose the best way to save him…and everyone. By dying in his place, _he finished hollowly.

_You died a hero's death. Your motives were indeed pure, _the voice acknowledged. _But…?_

Goku sighed. _I thought sacrificing my life was enough._

A lengthy pause, allowing him just enough time to realize what he should have realized back when the dragon had approached him in the aftermath of the Cell Games, its vast, unfathomable mind brushing his limited sphere of consciousness for a brief moment.

He had turned it down with the reasoning that his permanent death would solve the incessant invasion problem that had plagued Earth and its six billion residents since his birth. It was the 'hero' thing to do. Heroes sacrificed themselves for others, and the greatest sacrifice he could have made was his own life.

_But now you know that there is a greater sacrifice._

Goku nodded, not trusting himself to speak under the weight steadily pressing upon his spirit.

_Six billion in exchange for one._

Silence.

_Was it worth it?_

* * *

A/N: Wow, writing that sucked the happiness out of me real quick. Just a dark idea of what could have happened after the Cell Games.

I'm afraid this drabble might be a bit confusing; is it?


	12. Spoiled

For the umpteenth time, Krillin looked at his watch with bleary eyes that were constantly threatening to close. 4:53 AM. Just a few more minutes to go. He did a few half-hearted stretches with what little personal space he had, given that the long line of drowsy, irritable adults and their dozing children was starting to condense, everyone tensing up for the big rush once the doors opened.

Black Friday.

Sounded like a name for a disaster, perhaps to mark the day the death toll from the Black Plague had officially reached one third of Europe's population. Or the day the Saiyans had arrived to purge the planet. But no, this annual event was worse than any one-time catastrophe. Because it turned ordinary, more or less kind-hearted citizens on each other like rabid animals fighting over a scrap of meat. And his wife and daughter had left him to wade through the melee alone, and come back intact with every item on their long list of toys, clothing, and household appliances. He didn't know what was worse—the clawing and shoving that would last hours, or having to face the two females' wrath when he would return with inevitably less than what they had specified.

He perked up as the line started to jostle, prepping himself to jump forward with a boost of ki. But then he heard the chorus of angry shouts, a likely precursor to a brawl.

"Hey, you can't cut! We've been waiting here since yesterday night!" an irate woman yelled at someone Krillin couldn't see. He sighed at his chronic handicap and stood on tiptoes to see over the shoulder of the person in front of him.

"Yeah, you little fucker, get back in line before I have to throw you back there," sneered a tall, muscular man dressed in leather and covered in tattoos.

Krillin finally levitated up slightly to get a better view, knowing no one would notice since everyone's attention was on the brash fool who had cut in line.

He quickly ducked down again the second he saw who it was. _Shit, this is gonna be bad! Should I step in before he kills someone? Argh…where the hell's Goku when you need him?!_

There was the brief choking sound of someone being grabbed by the throat and strangled. Krillin massaged his temples, deciding to trust that the presence of the man's little blue-haired daughter beside him would prevent him from going psycho Saiyan on everyone.

"I don't do lines," Vegeta said venomously. "It's enough to be sent out here like an errand boy at 4 in the morning to buy a bunch of useless shitty toys and frilly female clothing."

He was interrupted by a shrill cry of protest from Bra that the toys and clothes she wanted weren't useless, and Daddy also shouldn't say swear words. Krillin choked as he tried to suppress his laughter.

"Shut up, brat. Once I'm finished with this insolent human I'm going to take you inside and spoil you senseless, so just wait one fucking minute."

The line shifted a foot backwards as Vegeta issued a final warning with the heavy thunk of a body hitting the ground. "Anyone else have a problem?" the Saiyan called into the crowd, which was now deathly silent. Krillin was suddenly thankful for his chronic handicap; he was short enough to remain fully hidden.

"Thought so," Vegeta sneered. "I'm taking my kid in for the next half hour. In the meantime, I advise all you sorry ass men out there to call your wives and file for divorce. This is a humiliation to anyone with a set of balls."

The crowd waited for a tense minute after the irritated Saiyan strode into the megastore with his daughter in tow. Then a few brave souls ventured forward to enter, and were promptly thrown back by some invisible force field blocking all the doors.

Krillin sighed. And he'd thought Marron was spoiled…


End file.
